.
CARLOS ran to her house in the red midnight, picking a stone from her garden strong enough to break her window, and with his bare feet planted in her green lawn he pitched it perfect: to shatter the glass onto the floor of her bedroom.
Activity inside Maggie’s house now. Connections made, circuits ignited, light bulbs lit. Carlos heard his heart in his eardrums.
Some dog barking from the lawn next door and just a look from Carlos made it go away, made the mutt see reason from the eyes of a man lacking sanity- a better animal. Broken glass from the pane and the yellow lab retreated in humility.
Now Carlos was shouting, without language, loud enough to wake the neighborhood sleeping. It was mad babble, the true vocabulary, aimed at Maggie’s heart through the open hole in the glass. In the middle of the monologue he stepped out, beside himself, watching it all in reverse: The police releasing him from the squad car, removing the handcuffs and pulling away backwards, the blood dripping back up and inside the old woman’s head, the old woman rising back up to her feet, Carlos’ strong hands welcoming her upright instead of pushing her down, and the film continued to rewind...
The old woman in the bathrobe, free from multiple contusion, standing beside a howling Carlos, inhaling the threats back into her lungs, swallowing her anger, stepping backward across the street and up her driveway and untying the knot in her bathrobe. She walked backwards into her house and got back into bed, waiting for the noise that would wake her up. The dog wandered back onto the sidewalk, the shards of Maggie’s bedroom pane reuniting in harmony, in location, the glass window whole, the stone soaring back across the lawn and into Carlos' hand.
And he held it. And he loved it. And the whole thing made him cum.
And with his bare feet planted in Maggie's green lawn he pitched the stone perfect: to shatter the glass onto the floor of her bedroom.
The neighbors all came out to watch Carlos get carted away. They stood silent, blinking in the cruiser’s pulsing light. Carlos looked out the back of the police car and saw Maggie, saw her on her front lawn in her nightgown, sobbing quietly and hugging her Father. As the cruiser pulled away he closed his eyes and saw her again, through the jagged gash of her bedroom window, smiling down at him in gratitude, for breaking through, for saving her, her hand beneath her nightgown and over her breast.
She blew him a kiss, and he knew what was real.
